I was happy to get an invite from a good friend to attend this event last night in Bellevue.  The speaker was Michael Hilton who is EVP of Marketing at Concur and was the company's founding CEO.  Concur is a great company here in the Seattle area that provides enterprise expense management software and, more interestingly, made the transition from premise-based, perpetual software licenses to SaaS, subsricption-based licenses and lived to tell the tale (although they certainly took their lumps along the way).

Michael and I chatted briefly before the event about the evolution of enteprise marketing strategies and if all the social media hoopla (my word) can lead to measurable results and booked new revenue.  I think we both agreed that you have to be doing something with it and Concur has made it part of their overall marketing mix.

During the presentation, Michael shared some great insights with the group and I wanted to share a few of the highlights:

• Search is the awareness king and their #1 source of leads that lead to new business.  They derive about 2/3 of their traffic from natural vs. paid search
• In 2009, they are 100% on-line for ad spend (no more print advertising).
• They measure their marketing success based on "qualified leads" generated and Sales applies this label based on a defined acceptance criteria
• Big users of webinars preferring scheduled events vs. on-demand content
• Experimenting with Twitter, Facebook, & LinkedIn
• Doing some really cool things around enabling customer communities and allowing customers to provide feature suggestions and vote on their importance as a community.

If you look at your sales pipeline right now, can you count at least one huge deal that has been there a long time and promises to be the game changer/make your year/validate your business event?

Most sales pipelines (especially those from early stage companies) have at least one large 'deal' that sits there.  The reasons are many and predictable – have not received a yes or no, wants to meet again, still looking for who has budget, project owner changed, re-prioritizing projects due to budget constraints, gone silent, etc.

The bigger the deal, the more important to you, and the longer it sits in the pipeline as a whale but not making any real movement means it will not happen in a time frame that is meaningful to you – this quarter, this year, before funding, etc.  That doesn't mean it won't happen.  It just means it will come together when it comes together if at all.

Chase big deals but be disciplined about measuring progress including having clearly understood desired end states at each step in the sales cycle that signify meaningful progress versus more meetings and email exchanges that provide limited clarity.  Mostly, and it sounds corny, don't put all your eggs in one basket as it rarely works out when and how you imagine.

There are lots of people talking about the value of social media marketing and all the amazing things you can do with it.  As someone who is trying to use these various tools and bending them to meet my needs, I have a suggestion for the three musketeers (Twitter, Facebook, & LinkedIn) to make life a little easier for those of us trying to use them to reach customers and prospects. 

Please, please give me some type of list management capability.  I have no way of exporting those that have become followers, friends, or fans.  I don't want to spam them, I just want to manage them centrally and know when a new follower/friend/fan signs up or, more importantly, leaves.  LinkedIn apparently allowed a .csv export but has since disabled that functionality.  If this feature exists in any or all and I am being dense, please let me know.

I like the ability to share news, updates, and special offers with these self-selected groups and understand that If I abuse the priviledge of being connected, I will be dropped aburptly so why not give me a way to monitor and manage them?

Oh, and if there is an innovative start up out there doing this, please let me know.  I am a buyer.

I received this in the mail yesterday and felt the need to share it.  Not because I have started my own institution of higher learning but because it really caught my eye.

Talk about a personalized and targeted direct mail piece from Alumni Originals.  Using my last name in the products shown.  Mass customization for sure.

And, no, I do not plan on buying one but if any of my loyal readers are interested, I'd be happy to get you something.